Rare top mask egungun. Yoruba, Nigeria. H 34.5 cm, painted white and black with ritually shaved head and Eshu (?) plait, large chin and cheek beard and scarred scarification marks on the cheeks. With copies of the auction catalog! The cult of Egungun is one of the most widespread cult communities within and outside the Yoruba region. It is dedicated to the worship of ancestors and certain orishas (deities); at the funerals of members of the Egungun, mask wearers embodying death enter a state of trance and in this way attempt to convey messages from the deceased to the living. Indigenous repair, slight damage to the edge below the beard and to the left eye, otherwise intact. Provenance: ex Wolfgang Grützmann Collection, Bad Kissingen; ex Ketterer Kunst, 190th Auction, Munich, October 16, 1993, lot 181; ex Zemanek-Münster, Auction 98/ I, Würzburg June 26, 1999, lot 425; ex Werner Zintl Collection, Worms; ex Zemanek-Münster, Auction Würzburg March 26, 2022, lot 65.